Insecure Love Poem

I am in need of craft and care
most days, sadly enough;
I thank God she’s beside me.

If I wake up roughclad in bark
she whittles me clean, shapes me
into something useful.

If morning is a minefield,
she tosses stones across it
to blast a path for us.

If the day threatens hate or gloom
she’s the Armorer Against, 
the Illuminator.

What I would not give to be
the man who will not flinch!
But I do, and she does not.

What she gains from me,
I cannot say. I do my best
to be present for her; maybe

that’s enough?  I ask, but
she laughs it off. I wobble along
fearing that maybe

we’ve gotten this far
on something I don’t even know
is happening and that I will 

trip and break it apart
without realizing what I’ve done.
I’m clumsy that way

but she seems to know that —
so we go, and sometimes we go slowly,
but still, we do go on.